—Your Secret Admirer
Her stomach dropped.
This wasn’t flirtation.
This was intrusive.
Fatima exhaled slowly. “Okay, that’s… not?—”
“It’s not random,” Arden murmured.
Her teeth caught the edge of her bottom lip, eyes fixed on the box like acknowledging it might shift the entire room.
Her thumb skimmed the syrup’s label.
The memory landed like a punch.
The night they’d talked about that blend.
Fatima had mentioned Delancey’s.
A throwaway conversation. Spoken right here.
Someone had been listening. Closely.
Fatima’s eyes narrowed. The warmth in her face vanished, replaced by quiet steel. Protective. Unflinching. “You think it’s a customer?”
“I don’t think it matters,” Arden said.
Her gaze lifted, quiet but unyielding. “The question is how long they’ve been watching and listening.”
Arden’s eyes swept the lounge, not idly, but like a scanner on alert.
Every corner, every flicker of motion fed the churn in her gut.
Alex sat stiffer than usual, his smug ease missing. When their eyes met, his smirk faltered. Not fear. But a shadow of it.
Harlan was worse. Jittery. Eyes darting. Hands unsure of where to land.
Sebastian sprawled like he belonged to the room—legs stretched, one arm thrown over the back of the chair, a glass swirling slow in his hand. But the stillness was camouflage. That faint smile never reached his eyes.
“Still clinging to the edges of the family business, Harlan?” Sebastian’s voice sliced beneath the surface—cool, casual, venom-tipped.
Harlan bristled. “I’m not the one on the edge.”
The air tensed. One word away from sparking.
Alex’s laugh came next. Low. Measured. The kind that reminded everyone who held the leash. “Careful, boys. No need to make a scene.”
Not camaraderie. Control. Conflict didn’t belong in the open.
At The Blackwell Room, everything whispered. And anything that couldn’t be hidden? It had to be spun.
Arty Barrett dropped into a lounge chair like he owned it. His whiskey caught the light as he lifted it, fingers wrapped a touch too tightly.
When he looked at Arden, he held her gaze long enough to feel unsettling. Then he dipped his head. Gentlemanly. Respectful.
But underneath? Expectation.
